As the digital landscape evolves, shoppers are becoming more accustomed to having what they want, when they want it. In an age when information is ubiquitous and consumers are in “shopping mode” all the time, an over-emphasis on the holiday season no longer makes sense for either customer or retailer. Perhaps it’s time for a new model.
Assortment rotation – swapping out products that are displayed by a store – is a popular business strategy for brick-and-mortar and online stores alike. But when and how should stores release a few products at a time versus revealing an entire product line? This research from Assistant Professor Kris Johnson Ferreira and Visiting Scholar Joel Goh is helping retailers fine tune that answer.
Adtech is broken. This is the central tenant of founding director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism Emily Bell’s view on the state of journalism today. With the worrying rise of the role of online advertising in political machinations, Bell argues those in the adtech know have been at best unaware and at worst complicit in failing to raise the alarm about the implications of these powerful technologies. What role do advertisers and brands have to play in developing a healthy democracy? It turns out quite a lot.
With promises of making big money off of readers without relying on subscriptions and hundreds of alleged partners who’ve signed on as early testers, publishing startup Invisibly might just be the next big thing/one of media’s best kept secrets. But if it’s not subscriptions, and it’s not advertising, what exactly is Invisibly’s play – and how can they be so confident it will translate into billions?
In response to the growing tendency towards short-form content and 140-character length snippets, Medium established itself as a destination for thought pieces and long-form articles. This case from Robert Siegel and Matthew Saucedo takes a look inside the challenges facing Medium’s leadership team as they strive to build a successful digital media company and develop a sustainable monetization model. As journalism innovates, can Medium serve as a noteworthy model for publishing in the digital age?
One of the recurring themes we heard coming out of our Future of Advertising and Publishing Forum was the rise of audio and voice-assisted devices in the role of journalism. It is becoming increasingly clear that this is “the next big thing” in the realm of media consumption, and former Nieman Lab fellow Trushar Barot highlights the current state of this growing trend. Barot’s takeaways? News orgs need to be doing more to prepare for the implications of this disruptive technology.
It’s clear that the media landscape is rapidly changing. But how do companies actually maneuver through the digital transformation in their own industries? Perhaps no one is better equipped to answer this question than the panel of experts at our Future Assembly conference this past April. In this talk, Professor Bharat Anand speaks with Nicco Mele of the Shorenstein Center, Jake Shapiro of Radio Public (and formerly PRX), and Justin Williams of Turner Broadcasting about how digital has impacted such industries as newspapers, television, and radio. The takeaways may just surprise you!
Professor Bharat Anand offers some germane and timely advice for media companies (hint: all companies are media companies now) in the digital age. Namely, Anand revisits newspapers and reveals some surprising facts about what really caused the industry’s decline. Professor Anand’s insights are useful for anyone looking to play in the digital landscape and leverage the power of connections to develop profitable business models and avoid falling into the “content trap.”
In spring 2015, Matt Tucker, the Digital Initiative platform manager, interviewed Laura Day, a research fellow in Professor Clay Christensen’s Forum for Growth and Innovation at HBS from June 2014 to October 2015. Tucker: What was your motivation in going to CES?
Rethink everything, or risk repeating the mistake of the transition from radio to TV “How many of you remember any mobile ad that you’ve seen in the last month?” When Harvard Business School Professor Sunil Gupta asked this question at the Digital Initiative Summit in March 2015, not one hand went up. “We’ve basically taken the […]